jo272wv

Would not have hurt my feelings, I consider myself temp until the hospital or floor can get fully staffed with in house nurses. I kind of look at all experiences as part of the fun and learning of travel nursing, most will be extremely good and a few will be bad. Keeps things interesting. good luck

I know this will sound like a broken record but here it goes anyways. Don't worry. I am on my first assignment and have found out that all the worry was not needed. I love the hospital I am in, I love the staff, I love the gals at my agency. I even just agreed to an extention. You will learn by reading this board and from other travel nurses you physically meet at work anything that need corrected on your next contract. I just figure that I can get thru almost anything for 13 weeks. Congrats on joining the traveler team and good luck.

I am a travel nurse, first assignment, a situation arose last night and I want your comments. hx: the floor I work on, is a 6 bed med/surg unit recently opened and 75 % staffed with travel nurses, but still understaffed via hospital standards. situation: I went in last night and was the only nurse scheduled for the 6 bed unit, no tech either just me. The pts are not bad mainly observation and pain control. lucky a nurse did call and say she would come in at 11p and a nurse from the fast track came over to help me 7p to 11p. This has happened to several nurses in the past with no help offering to come in. My question: Even with the easy pts and only 6 beds, is this safe? what if a code were needed and you were the only person on the floor? The hospital does not seem to be worried about situations like this but will try hard to at least give the one RN a tech most of the time. As a travel nurse, if you walked into this situation, what would you do? Can you as a travel nurse refuse the situation? Would my license be on the line should something go wrong and the hospital knew the situation? Not complaining, I like the hospital and staff and actually just extended my contract. Just want advise.

:up:Hi, I am currently at MUSC for my first travel assignment, It took about a week for a interview but it is a med/surg unit. This hospital is great to work as a traveler in. They use a lot of travelers and we are treated very well. The orientation consist of a lot of computer time (catts) but once thru that it is excellent. Good Luck and hope you get here.

I am on my first assignment and since the state of WV is not a compact state and that is where my original license is from I will need to get a new license for every state I work in. My question is, What do you do with them after the assignment is over but may need them again? certainly you can not possibly aford to keep the renewals up on all of them.

It seems this message board is very diverse in its members experiences, for me I am half way thru my first assignment in Charleston South Carolina. It seems there are a lot of newbies as well as seasoned travelers and hopefully will share their experiences. That being said and to help us so called newbies make better choices of assignments, 1. Where was your best assignment and why? Thanks

Hi all, I am currently on my first travel assignment in Charleston South Carolina and loving every minute of it. I hope to extend my contract for another 3 months and waiting for them to ask. When I tire of here I would like to do Alaska next. Has anyone travel nursed in Alaska and if so which are the better hospitals up there, How is the housing situation, and did you enjoy the venture? Thanks

I dont know if that is to much because I do not know your financial needs. But I will give you my situation and you may be able to compare. I started in a 4yr BSN program when I was 43, I made 24,000 a yr prior to school. I had to quit work and take a part time 48 hr a month extern job. I received about 9,000 dollars a yr in grants and loans to live on. I graduated last May with debt at 42,000 which once consolidated is 250.00 a month for the next 25yrs.. even at this amount I struggled some but made it through. I am now 48, and thought about paying extra on the loans to get them paid off but one nurse at work told me not to worry that I would probably die before I paid it off so spend the money now.. lol.. he was joking. That was 4 yrs, yours is one... only you can know the amount you need to get through that yr.

The hospital were I work will not give out or will not permit nurses to give out any information over the phone unless the paitent put that said person on a give information to list that is placed in the chart. We generally give each person a code name or number. This is mainly do to JACO. If any other member of the family calls we are permited to give them the name of the contact person in which they can call, this is usually the MPOA or whomever the pt had chosen. Most of the time it works great unless you get a family member that wont accept this policy, then we transfer them to the charge nurse.

reminds me of a few nights ago, I was to administer soap suds enema till clear to a pt. The first one did not produce anything but brown liquid return, I was giving the second and and the charge nurse for some unknown reason came into the room, looked at me and said in front of the pt and wife, " you are not inserting it far enough in", I was in awe that she would do this in front of the pt. I was inserting it at least six inches which is protocal, she proceeded to go out and complain of my technique to the other nurses in which they responded to her, " what do you want him to do, rupture the bowel?" I finished the procedure my way, which produced a massive explosion which I was glad to help clean up because the pt stated "wow that feels so much better....."

This is not uncommon, the lpn may have not been at the hospital when the Dr. spoke with the pt. You handled this correctly, the only thing different I may have done was to call the education dept and have them send up a pamplet on coumadin and valve replacement. I would have given one to the pt and another to the Lpn family member. Some people have to see it in writeing before they comprehend it. Keep up the good work....

since I did not go back to college until I was 40, I did a year of remedial classes. I then applied to nursing school the following January. I received a letter of rejection in April but was told to send a card in to be put on a waiting list. I sent it in and in three weeks received an letter stating I would be able to attend in the fall. I worked also on pre recs the first year before I applied also which may have helped.

We had a code blue in progress and the pt in the next bed over ask us to move the code pt to another room because he could not get to sleep. Later he called billing and told them he should have one night deducted from his bill for the inconvienence. BTW the coded pt went to icu and returned a week later and discharged two days after that.. Happy ending.:smiletea:

The surgincal dept at my hospital has already done away with IV phenergan and switched to zofran. Family practice and internal medicine are a little slower at changing. Zofran seems to achieve the same results without the sedative effect and the burning when given. I think this was a good move and cuts down on the aggrivation when the drug seeking pt asks for their pain and nausea medications together. I still do not give both zofran and pain meds at the same time though, even with zofran.

I may be wrong but I thought the federal gov. banned mandatory overtime for nurses. I know that it is not a practice in my hospital or any other hospital in my area. Of course when the hospital calls and ask me to pull an extra shift I usually do because I know first hand how difficult it is on my fellow workers and the paitents when we have to work short. Plus time and 1/2 looks good on the pay check.

The class that covered HH when I was in the BSN program was called community nursing. We did 8 weeks of home health and 8 weeks of community. I did an assisted living for community and hospice for home health. I enjoyed this experience because it let me see more than just hospital nursing. I am now getting my two years experience and then considering going into home health care. You hear so many complaints about nursing students on this form, it is refreshing to hear a positive post. Thanks to the original poster.

Nursing school is the time for learning, learning all the ins in outs so to speak. Speak with your instructor and ask to be told when this situation arises so you can observe the process. If it becomes to much, walk away and try it another time. All procedures, situations become easier with multiple exposure. When I was in school I had to walk out of a few situations because they became overwhelming. I went home, looked up literature on them and was better prepared the next time. good luck with your experiences

no, no, no...... The only worker other than a lpn or rn able to pass medication in a long term facility (depends on state) that I know of is a AMAP (assistive medication administation personel). They attend classes and take a test in order to be certified. I was one before I became an RN. At that level I would not have passed a med I did not draw up myself the same as I would not as a RN either.

I too have only been in one code blue situation, I took the documentation part of it also. I watched all the code blue team doing what they were best at doing and wondering how they learned it. I think I could document, push the drugs, do the chest compression but, I dont know if I could ever be fast enough to find and get the drugs ready to hand to the nurse administering them. I am going to take the advice of the above nurses and take ACLS next time it is offered.

I do not think students are ever in the way. A helping hand is always good to have. Nurses need to always remember their own clinical experiences first. Who was the best nurse you worked with and how did you feel when you were put with a rude nurse. If you know you are not a good preceptor and you can not give a student the best posible experience, then you need to tell the students advisor you would prefer not having students. I have found that nurses that complain about student nurses being in the way are the same nurses that complain about new grads not knowing anything when the become GNs. Its a shame that they could not have made a difference.

On a positive note, my hospital usually post a seperate sheet from the schedule that list hours available for overtime that any nurse can sign up for. The only problem with signing is that if census is down you are the first called off since its overtime. If you worked the night before and you slept all day in anticipation of going in, it wasted a whole day off. I prefer that they call and ask me to come in, then I know at that moment if I got enough sleep to handle the shift, plus when I am working and the posibility of being short comes up, I am so thankful for the nurses that come in when called. Nursing is a teamwork profession and is stressful even when you are not short staffed, so I help when I can. If I can not go in then I simply tell them, when they call, that I was up all day and dont feel I would be safe taking care of pts, that usually is enough said. If you work on a floor that does not respect your dicision to not work when called and causes you grief, maybe it would be time to look at another floor that will respect your personal life more.

My hospital uses admission nurses from 7am to 8pm, it is great, the floor nurse only has to reassess for documentation and fill out the unit paperwork such as plans of care, med sheets, ect. After 8pm we are on our own to do total admisions.

I would get rid of costomer satisfaction as the number one goal and go back to the thought of doing things that need to be done for the good of the paitent. To much concern about pt complaints to survays ect. hinders a nurse from giving proper care to the non complient pt. example: Mr. Jones it is time to get up and walk so we can get that gas moving. Mr. Jones: get the hell out of here I am to sore. Nurse: That tone will not fly Mr. Jones, you have to get up... Note to nurse manager: nurse was rude and would not honor my wishes Nurse Manager: God my customer service score is going to drop, I need to write up the nurse.

I had my first death a about 5 months age.. all I can say is Time, Time, and more Time... At first I thought about it all the time, What could I have done different. I still think of it once in awhile but as time goes by, I am ok about it because I know I did everything possible to prevent it.

My unit just went hourly rounds 7a to 10p than q2 10p to 7a. At first I thought damn where am I going to find the time, but after researching, the evidence based practice, I am convinced it is a good idea. We divide it up that the nurse will round q2 hours on the odd hours, the NAs round on the even hours and the nurse manager and the clinical supervisor round one time each. Pt satisfaction is expected to increase and so far the amount of pts calling out has decreased.